Hearts in Atlantis
by compartmental
Summary: (my love is pale like moonlit pearls) At the wreckage of what was once his greatest city, the great god of the sea mourns what could have been.


**some notes: **i haven't read the books since tlo came out, have not read the new series past tlh, and so i'm a bit behind. all sp&g mistakes are mine. written using the **1sentence **lj alpha prompts, even though i didn't technically claim it. oops. non-linear, obviously.

* * *

Hearts in Atlantis  
_my love is pale like moonlit pearls  
_

**01.** comfort

He meets her not long after her uncle's funeral; her eyes are still red from crying and her shoulders are tight with stress, with grief, and he offers to help her carry her grocery bags.

**02. **kiss

Their first kiss happens thirty feet off shore; they're both submerged underwater because he can _do _that and when she tells him she never wants to come up for air, he vows to never make her.

**03. **soft

He doesn't remember the last time he heard a heartbeat like a countdown, a soft _thud thud _until it runs out.

**04. **pain

He learns quickly that while he doesn't feel flesh wounds, she certainly does; he apologizes profusely and she just smirks, her eyes twinkling, says she likes it rough.

**05. **potatoes

The first meal she cooks for him is fried potatoes and she smiles with more pride than he's seen before; it makes him _want._

**06. **rain

He doesn't know which he prefers: the long days of sand or sun, the foam of his sea tickling their toes, or when their afternoons are spent with silk pillows and sweaty sheets, the sound of the rain deafening against the rooftop.

**07. **chocolate

He'll spend of the rest of eternity trying to find the words to describe her, to do her justice; all he's come up with so far is that there's always the lingering smell of too sweet chocolate on her pale skin.

**08. **happiness

Sometimes, he doesn't know if he's truly happy or just content; other times, he realizes that they're the same thing.

**09. **telephone

He gets exactly one phone call in the few months he's with her; he lets it ring and ring until eventually the caller accepts that he's not going to be answered.

**10. **ears

You'd never guess it just by looking at her, but she can _talk_ for as long as there's an open ear to listen, and he absorbs every single word she says because to him, every word she says is like a new prayer.

**11. **name

He tells her his name is Jonathan Alexander, that he's a businessman from Europe; she smirks and calls him a liar, tells him that if he's going to make up some silly story he should probably hide his trident.

**12. **sensual

Her innate prim and properness is nothing compared to her carnal appetite.

**13. **death

She mentions death one day; it's a passing, offhand comment, but it still brings him the image of her gravestone, new and freshly engraved, listing things like _mother _and _loving wife_ and everything else she will be, shrines to a life he has no place in.

**14. **sex

He'd like to say it was all about sex, that he was just trying to strengthen his legacy, but even he doesn't believe that.

**15. **touch

He loses himself to the ocean, to his kingdom; with one touch, one hand on his shoulder, she brings him back to her.

**16. **weakness

There's not much (nothing) he wouldn't do for her.

**17. **tears

Sometimes, he hears her whimpering in her sleep and he doesn't know what to do.

**18. **speed

On a day in the second month, they go paddleboating out into the ocean; he paddles and she steers them in the wrong direction, but somehow they end up exactly where they need to be.

**19. **wind

The shack isn't close to being new or sturdy, and as the god of storms, he could easily stop the wind from beating up against the poor walls, but he likes the way she curls closer to him to shelter herself from the weather.

**20. **freedom

There's nothing tying her to this world; he has thousands of years and infinite anchors pulling him down.

**21. **life

He's lived since what humans consider the beginning of time; he's seen civilizations rise and fall — sometimes at his hand — and he's fought monsters straight out of nightmares, but the weeks he spends at Montauk are their own little eternity.

**22. **jealousy

To have such power means that everything else is amplified; his jealousy, unsurprisingly, is in constant need of a check; needs a lesson in trust.

**23. **hands

On early mornings they stay in bed, just talking, and he'll reach under the covers and wrap his hand around hers.

**24. **taste

During his stay, there is the taste of salt water permeating the air of the shack.

**25. **devotion

She tells him _forever _like a promise and Olympians don't cry, they _don't_, but he can't stand to look her in the eyes when all he sees is an expiration date.

**26. **forever

(But, in his own way, he has given her forever; in nine months, in twelve years, until the day she dies, she'll always have a piece of him.)

**27. **blood

The glowing of her belly is a symbol of his selfishness, but he still relishes in the fact that the baby growing inside her will share his heritage, his DNA, two parts red blood and two parts golden ichor.

**28. **sickness

Sometime during the second week, she develops a cold and it's the most wonderful thing he's ever seen, the quiet perseverance of a modern woman.

**29. **melody

He won't pretend to be his nephew, but he does boast the ability to carry a tune; she can, too, and their harmonies are so beautiful he's tempted to go on tour.

**30. **star

Some nights they spend out on the beach, the moonlight caressing his skin like a loyal servant; she points out constellations and stars, asks if he knew who they were named after, and he almost always says yes.

**31. **home

The old shack on the beach, the warm bedroom with a yellow glow, feels more like home than his throne on Mount Olympus ever has.

**32. **confusion

On their occasional outings, he enjoys masquerading as odd characters to bewilder the locals.

**33. **fear

He'll always remember his time at Montauk as laced with a constant fear of his brother's wrath.

**34. **lightning/thunder

Zeus isn't happy with him, and Zeus is never subtle; when he tells her he loves her, the brightness of her smile is almost overshadowed by the earsplitting crack of thunder, by the way the sky lights up in a single streak; _almost_.

**35. **bonds

He foolishly keeps an engagement ring tucked in his pocket until the day she marries Gabe.

**36. **market

They can't stay in the shack all summer, even though he'd really prefer it; eventually, they crawl out into the sunlight and venture into the local village, waving at the market owners as they debate the qualities of seasonal fruits.

**37. **technology

Hermes stops by one day while she's asleep, tells him he knows their little secret, tells him Zeus' patience is running out.

**38. **gift

She surprises him one day with a little box wrapped with a bow — it's a seashell, diligently carved with her initials; it's a modern day treasure.

**39. **smile

There are two types of people: people who smile conservatively, closed lips and small; then, there the people who smile with their whole face, open mouth, teeth visible, eyes sparkling; he's the first, but she's the second, unguarded and free within her joy.

**40. **innocence

He thinks of their child, of all the challenges he's going to face and the innocence he'll never have, and he feels guilt.

**41. **completion

He wants to say forever, wants to settle down with her and marry her and raise kids with her, but he has a duty and his immortality, and the end of summer is approaching much too quickly.

**42. **clouds

She doesn't like the clouds, says they block her view of the world; he makes sure that wherever she is, there are never clouds to dampen her day.

**43. **sky

She talks about her dreams, about how the sky's the limit and she's never going to stop reaching for it; all he has is his past and a broken family.

**44. **heaven

She tells him of heaven, of the place beyond the clouds where people go when they die, and he tells her of Olympus; if you squint, they're kind of the same place.

**45. **hell

When she tells him of hell, he smirks, thinks of the time he caught Hades cross-stitching by numbers.

**46. **sun

There are never enough hours in the day, never enough days in a week, not enough weeks to spend together.

**47. **moon

As the ruler of the sea, he feels a natural pull to the moon, to the tidal movements and everything that changes; the tide goes in, the tide goes out, a pattern that she is mesmerized by (and he's mesmerized by her).

**48. **waves

He looks out into the crashing waves and then into her eyes and he can't tell the difference.

**49. **hair

The second day he knows her, she wakes up with knots in her hair and she starts crying; he doesn't know what to do, has never really experienced women showing weakness, so he comforts her the best he can.

**50. **supernova

Like most things, he supposes, everything that is bright and beautiful eventually explodes into nothing.


End file.
